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SOMETHING WRONG 




Dr. Andrew Taylor Still 



SOMETHING WRONG 



BY 

GEORGE V. WEBSTER, D.O. 

AUTHOR OF "CONCERNING OSTEOPATHY," MEM- 
BER OF NEW YORK STATE OSTEOPATHIC SOCIETY, 
MEMBER OF AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC ASSOCIA- 
TION, MEMBER OF AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC SO- 
CIETY OF OPHTHALMOLOGY AND OTO- LARYNGOLOGY 



PREFACE 



J. WILBURN DEASON, M.S., Ph. G., M.D., D.O. 

AUTHOR OF DEASON'S PHYSIOLOGY, LECTURER AT THE 
CHICAGO COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHY, FORMER DIRECTOR 
OF THE A. T. STILL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, FORMER 
INSTRUCTOR AT THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF OSTEOP- 
ATHY, MEMBER OF AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC ASSOCIA- 
TION, MEMBER OF AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC SOCIETY 
OF OPHTHALMOLOGY AND OTO-LARYNGOLOGY, MEM- 
BER OF THE ILLINOIS OSTEOPATHIC ASSOCIATION 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRIET E. KNAPP 



THE PLIMPTON PRESS 

NORWOOD, MASS. 

1918 



COPYRIGHT, 1918 
BY G. V. WEBSTER, D. O. 



JUN 17 1318 



THE'PLIMPTON-PRESS 
NORWOODMASS-U-S-A 



&CLA497781 



DEDICATED TO 

MY SON 
GEORGE V. WEBSTER, JUNIOR 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PART I 
Still Frontispiece 

PAGE 

The Savage 21 

A Spoonful of Something 26 

The Ox Cart 38 

The Scientist ........ 40 



PART II 

A Sack of Notions 44 

Scrambled Eggs 57 

Squinting 68 

Santa Claus 83 

The Hum of Your " Works " . . . . 85 

An Inventory 87 



PREFACE 
By J. Deason, M.S., Ph.G., M.D., D.O. 

Not without a true love for nature 
and a desire to investigate her in- 
tricacies can man ever appreciate the 
wonderful knowledge which she holds 
in store for him. The great students 
of nature to whom has been unfolded 
her great books of truth — the men 
and women of seemingly simple mind 
— have been content to study life's 
natural laws as they are. 

Such a man was Luther Burbank, 
for he studied plant life in such a 
way as to learn to make plants do 
his bidding. So the science of grow- 
ing combined varieties, most beauti- 
ful and most useful, was developed. 
Such a man was Charles Darwin, 
from whose studies and comparisons 
of animal life the theory of evolution 
grew. Such a man was Sir Francis 
[vii] 



PREFACE 



Galton, the father of eugenics. It 
was he who saw, in the transmission 
of inherited characteristics, a way to 
improve the human race. Another 
such man was Dr. A. T. Still. It 
was he who saw the body's greatest 
efficiency in the practical application 
of mechanical principles to the human 
machine. It was Dr. Still who first 
saw something wrong with the human 
engine when it failed to work properly 
and that condition which we call 
disease took possession of the body. 
In the preparation of this little 
book it has been the author's purpose 
to teach its readers to think and to 
reason in terms of the relation of 
structure to function. Most teachers 
of physiology tell us that "man is a 
machine," and right there they prac- 
tically throw the monkey wrench 
away, and from the introduction of 
that subject to its completion in the 
university, physiology is not taught 
from the mechanical viewpoint. 
[ viii ] 



PREFACE 



Dr. Webster has most clearly and 
interestingly explained the workings 
of the body machine and what it 
means when something goes wrong. 

Time was when most people thought 
they needed a " tonic" at certain 
times of the year. Doctors thought 
so and advised it. Many still so 
advise, but the fact is the term 
" tonic" is not to be found in modern 
texts on materia medica or pharma- 
cology. Likewise, calomel was once 
(and even yet by the uninformed) 
thought to produce an increased secre- 
tion of bile by the liver. It is now 
known that it not only does not do 
this, but actually retards such action. 

A professor of pharmacology in a 
certain leading medical school recently 
told me that he now teaches but ten 
drugs, and that he believes that very 
few of these have any actual value. 
In a case of illness in his own family 
he advised neither drugs, vaccines, 
nor serums. 

[ix] 



PREFACE 



In these few facts there is ample 
evidence of many of the statements 
made by Dr. Webster. Learning new 
things is no easy task, but unlearning 
old things is even more difficult. In 
the process of mental evolution there 
is ever a constant struggle between 
reason and tradition. It is the osteo- 
pathic purpose to teach men and 
women to think in harmony with 
the evidence of science. Osteopathy 
appeals to those who read, who think, 
who reason. 



t*l 



SOMETHING WRONG 

PART I 

Something is wrong or things would 
go right! 

When your automobile backfires, 
you know for a certainty something is 
wrong. Some small part needs ad- 
justment. You naturally seek the 
services of the mechanic at the garage, 
if you are not a "fix-it" genius your- 
self. You or the mechanic or any 
other sane person would not dream 
that the condition might be corrected 
by pills deposited at intervals in the 
gasoline tank. 

Suppose the farmer observes that 
his reaper is not tying the bundles 
of grain properly. He might be con- 
sidered crazy if he tried to remedy 
the matter by putting a plaster on 
the knot-making mechanism. 

En] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

When mother's electric washer will 
not run with the current on, does she 
send for the painter to decorate it with 
a new coat of paint? Absurd! Yes, 
but didn't that same mother smile 
an acquiescence when her daughter's 
sprained and dislocated ankle was 
painted with liniment? 

Is it possible for the proprietors 
of human brains to be less reason- 
able regarding their own physical 
mechanism than they are about the 
disorders that appear in their every- 
day machinery? 

Certainly, something is wrong or 
things would go right! 

Man is a delicate vital organism. 
To harbor our spirits, the laws of 
mechanics are in copartnership with 
the laws of chemistry and the laws 
of life. The harmonious cooperation 
of each member of this firm conditions 
our tenancy. With the mechanism 
of our body perfect, the chemicals 
which our machine produces for its 

[12] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

own use will be faultless. Then the 
life forces will flow without interrup- 
tion, providing for us a comfortable 
habitation. 

You may not have thought from 
just this viewpoint about this little 
intricate assemblage of tissues you 
call yourself. If people cogitated as 
logically about their physical some- 
thing wrongs as they do concerning 
the faults of man's inventions, many 
bodily infirmities would be correspond- 
ingly abbreviated. 

The little ticks that spell hours 
and days and lifetimes are the music 
of a man-made instrument. If your 
watch is running too slow, would 
you subject it to the rigors of a 
cathartic, or would you be sensible 
and have some one acquainted with 
its anatomy do the needed fixing? 

'Trauma" means an injury by 
violence. The members of the human 
family are subject to trauma through- 
out the hours that intervene between 

[13] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

their first cry and the final gasp. It 
would take a big diary to chronicle 
all the traumatic events that wrench 
and rack bones and sinews during 
the days of the average individual. 

The human frame is made to with- 
stand much stress and strain. Ac- 
cidents may not leave an enduring 
consequence; yet often some structure 
by a mishap is forced from its normal 
relationships without its possessor 
being aware of the fault. Later he 
discovers something wrong with the 
daily program of some organ or part 
of his body. 

The mechanism may also become 
deranged through fatigue, faults of 
habit, postural defects, results of in- 
fection, improper use or unnatural 
environment. Yet withal, injuries and 
strains, more or less severe, may be 
accounted the most frequent cause of 
disturbance to the mechanical struc- 
ture upon which our health depends. 

Nature has a way of hiding her 

[14] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

secrets from you and from me. Less 
than three hundred years ago no 
one knew that the blood circulated. 
A century back and germs were not 
on our visitor's list. Fifty years ago, 
no one ever thought of making gen- 
eral application of the principles of 
mechanics to correct the disorders 
of the body recognized as disease. 
Nature's treasured secrets are be- 
coming common property. We are 
still learning — still in the process 
of evolution. The laws of aviation 
are as old as those of gravitation, 
but most of us can remember when 
the first flying machine featured the 
county fairs. The laws of bodily 
mechanics are as ancient as the race; 
now they are being applied to remedy 
human infirmities. Their principles 
are made available to the sufferer 
from physical derangement, through 
osteopathic discovery, investigation, 
and practice. 

Disease is another name for per- 

[15] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

verted physiology — disordered func- 
tion. Function, or discharge of duty, 
in man's body is just as impossible 
without structure as it is in an 
electric motor without definite ar- 
rangement of parts. 

If you drive your car over an 
embankment, you will probably need 
some one who can adjust and repair. 
You would have small use for a 
chemist just then. 

If your boy tumbles down the 
hatchway, it is decidedly the more 
likely that it is his mechanical struc- 
ture, rather than his chemistry, that 
first suffers disturbance. The first 
indication, however, that something 
is wrong with your lad may be the 
discovery sometime later that his 
liver is shirking. Just a few ounces 
of reason sprinkled on the situation 
and it is easy to understand what 
that fall did to the mechanism con- 
trolling the functions of his liver. 

It is apparently the liver, as a 
[16] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

manufacturer of chemicals, that is 
first discovered at fault, rather than 
the communicating tissues control- 
ling that organ. The liver, faithful 
servant, obeys its governing mecha- 
nism, as does a locomotive the throttle. 
A man may be able to analyze star 
dust, but how would such training 
assist him either in finding or in 
adjusting a displaced tenth dorsal 
vertebra? That mischievous vertebra 
could be the one that had crossed 
nature's wires to the liver. 

There was a man in our town. 
He is in the asylum now. He insisted 
on putting a little strychnine in his 
telephone whenever he could not ring 
central. His wife has a second rib 
twisted. It irritates the sympathetic 
nerve fibers to the heart. She takes 
a little strychnine now and then for 
her palpitation and is accredited sane. 
Funny, isn't it — two mechanisms 
— one an electrical contrivance, the 
other a vital mechanism, something 

[17] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

wrong with both? Can you distin- 
guish any great difference in the 
relative sanity which wishes to ad- 
minister strychnine in each instance? 

If we were not vital, physico-chemi- 
cal mechanisms subject to structural 
and functional disturbance, the osteo- 
path could not justify his calling. 

Friends have just brought our sis- 
ter home. She has been injured in 
a street-car accident. There are no 
open wounds, but she suffers pain. 
She must have a doctor at once. 
Which is the more logical, to call 
in attendance one taught to smother 
pain or one trained to relieve distress 
by correcting the mechanical basis for 
suffering? Wrongs should be righted, 
not blanketed! 

[ You would not expect a watch to 
perform its function as a chronometer, 
if it were not mechanically perfect. 
Function is manifest through struc- 
ture — and only through structure. As 
a simple proposition in physics, when 
[18] 



SOMETHING WRONG, 

the structure is perfect, function will 
be perfect. This is true to the last 
analysis — no scientist in his labora- 
tory has been able to negative that 
proposition. 

Life is energy; electricity is energy; 
heat is energy; yet none can mani- 
fest its energy except through some 
material structure. The body is the 
form through which our life is mani- 
fest. Its parts must be arranged per- 
fectly or disorder and disease result. 

When the water-wheel is not de- 
livering the full power under normal 
head, the millwright would be beside 
himself to pour acid or alkali into the 
intake with a view to correcting the 
trouble. Rather, he wisely regulates 
the machinery in accordance with 
the laws of physics, and the wheel 
delivers its full power. 

Whatever in the final analysis life 
itself may be, it is never manifest 
except through structure. Destroy or 
distort the structure and life's mani- 

[19] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

festations are destroyed or distorted. 
This is true of the body as a whole, 
of each organ as a part of a body, and 
of each cell as a part of an organ. 

The savage applied his incantation; 
the magician, his magic; the super- 
stitious, his credulous practice; the 
faithful, his prayer; the drug vendor, 
his empirical remedy, but human 
bodies having something wrong with 
their structure have continued to be 
a source of torment to their possessors 
since the days of the cave men. 

Johnnie fell off the fence, as John- 
nies are apt to do. A month later 
his digestion was mysteriously im- 
paired. Green apples and mince-pie 
both defaulted the responsibility. 
Dope or diet gave imperfect comfort. 
Something was wrong — had been 
wrong — ever since the fall. Johnnie's 
tongue or temperature or "tummy" 
did not indicate where the trouble 
was any more than a one-eyed auto- 
mobile will tell you where the circuit 
[20] 



rt$1gSS|tej 




The savage applied his incantation 



SOMETHING WRONG 

is broken. The man who located 
Johnnie's real difficulty knew the 
anatomy and physiology sufficiently 
well to locate a twisted rib interfering 
with the nervous pathways to his 
stomach. When the head of a rib 
was obtruding upon the sympathetic 
nerve to Johnnie's lunch basket, that 
stomach felt about as comfortable as 
does your foot when an obtrusion of 
similar character on the sciatic nerve 
puts "pins and needles" in your toes. 
The rib was "fixed." Johnnie ate 
normally and was well. 

It takes a shopman longer to over- 
haul a car that has hurdled a 
stone wall than to tighten a bolt in 
the steering column. Disorders of the 
human mechanism vary from slight 
disturbances to general interruption 
of the activities. Some adjustments 
of structure can be made easily — 
others require more days of grace — 
many have been so neglected that the 
damage is beyond repair. 

[22] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Disease has been comparatively free 
from an accounting to human under- 
standing. Some of its codes, however, 
have been illuminated. The discovery 
of the mechanical causes as factors 
which produce symptoms, recognized 
as disease, evidently struck the mother 
lode in the mining operations for 
therapeutic truth. 

Poisons are . destructive to life. 
What logic can be found in the 
administration of a poison, even in 
infinitesimal portions, by any one in- 
terested in the preservation of life? 
Any substance (except water) without 
food value introduced into the human 
system is an irritant or a poison. 
The cells of the body react to a 
poison in their effort at self-protection. 
They try to eliminate or neutralize it. 
When the body is laboring under the 
handicap of disorder and disease what 
logical excuse can be forthcoming for 
adding to its embarrassment? 

Education is training in the com- 

[23] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

prehension of life and its environ- 
ment. Disease occurs in the environ- 
ment of human tissues. Its inter- 
pretation is in terms of perverted 
physiology. Man's body being the 
scene of disease, then of what avail 
to chase a rattlesnake for its venom, 
invest in a little mercury, or extract 
a drop of poison from the ivy, with 
the idea of assisting a disordered 
structure to function properly? Any 
good seamstress knows that bottled 
snake-bites will not adjust by as much 
as a hair's breadth the tension on her 
sewing machine. Mercury has its 
service to perform for the comfort 
and preservation of the race, but 
what potency of mercury has ever 
been known to correct a displaced 
joint? 

A typewriter will work with almost 
any kind of oil, or for a time without 
oil; but green oil or pink oil or sperm 
oil or mineral oil all appear incom- 
petent to this useful instrument when 
[24] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

a type bar is bent. With the align- 
ment disturbed, a ^mechanic and not 
an oil epicure should be conscripted. 

Osteopathy is just another way to 
write opportunity. It affords the sick 
the opportunity of having the me- 
chanical something wrongs corrected 
so that every little movement of 
every tiny cell in every lane or corner 
of the body will have perfect and 
natural freedom. 

Who would direct a chauffeur to 
put a teaspoonful of any odorous, 
amber liquid in the radiator for 
the purpose of preventing a knock 
in the engine? Yet it was from a 
big brown bottle that I saw one 
chauffeur's "boss" swallow a tea- 
spoonful of "something." He had 
been told that it would cure his hay 
fever. He did not know that the 
bones of his neck had slipped or that 
there were bony irregularities in his 
nose that actually needed fixing by 
an expert physiological engineer. He 

[25] 




A teaspoonjul of "something" 



SOMETHING WRONG 

had been told one thing. He had still 
to learn the others. 

By the way, this telling game is a 
comfortable one for the teller; es- 
pecially if the spokesman has on his 
side tradition, and on the part of 
his listener luxuriant ignorance and 
bliss. Most of us know only that 
which we have been told. Few of us 
uncover new truths for ourselves. 
Why believe all we are told? Why 
not put the plausible tale in the test 
tube with truth and reason? The 
reaction would often provide more 
glory for the tube than for the tale. 
Scientific ideas still penetrate the 
mind of the average individual a bit 
more readily than hailstones puncture 
a pavement. Columbus discovered this 
fact years before he embarked for his 
westward journey. It is human nature, 
you know, to oppose what is not under- 
stood. "We are down on what we 
are not up on." 

Wigwag your eyebrows. Catch this 

[27] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

signal, for right here is where are listed 
a few of the workable mechanical 
toys in and about your joyful self. 
When you know about them, you will 
better understand. There are levers 
at every joint — hundreds of them in 
all. There is a pump under the breast. 
There are pulleys in the eye. There is 
a storage battery in the skull. There 
is a complete plumbing system, even 
to traps, valves, and vents. There is a 
sewage system perfect for every need. 
There is a filter at the kidney, an- 
other at the liver, and still another at 
the lung. At every gland there is a 
chemical factory — collecting and re- 
arranging the materials needed by the 
body. Every organ is a living work- 
shop having its mechanical, chemical, 
and vital relationships. None of these 
adaptive mechanisms grew from a 
bottle, nor can it be conceived how 
the contents of a bottle will recall 
their usefulness when once it is im- 
paired. 

[28] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Tissues we can examine. They are 
organic fabrics. Some of their prop- 
erties chemistry has made known to 
us. But life itself has never been an- 
alyzed; it is known only through its 
manifestations in cell and tissue. 

Atoms must obey chemical laws; 
forms must obey physical laws; ef- 
fects must follow causes. As a source 
of physical disorder, the mechanical 
structure comes first, the chemical re- 
actions second, and the vital reactions 
last. A failure of the mechanical 
foretells the failure of all; a fail- 
ure in the chemical is impossible with 
normal structure and an adequate 
supply of raw materials. A failure 
of the vital is not possible without 
first a disturbance in one or the other 
of the basic sciences (physics and 
chemistry), through which it is made 
evident. Mechanical disturbances 
must then be the foundation of much 
physiological disturbance. There is 
always a discernible something wrong, 

[29] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

be the investigator adequately trained 
and the search sufficiently thorough 
to discover it. 

Disease comes in one of several 
ways. Mechanical disturbance is un- 
doubtedly the most frequent cause. 
Next in order is chemical disturbance 
through imperfect supply, the product 
of infection, or the intake of poison. 
Vital disturbances through exhaustion 
or inhibition are logically the least 
frequent sources of disease and fre- 
quently depend upon the first-men- 
tioned causes. 

The life processes, from a therapeu- 
tic viewpoint, may be considered rela- 
tively important in the order of our 
knowledge of them. Human knowl- 
edge, in its completeness, follows this 
order: first, the structure; second, 
the chemistry; last, the vital. Man 
knows less about the vital reactions in 
the body than he understands about 
the chemical reactions. He is less ac- 
quainted with the chemical reactions 

[30] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

than with the structural relationships. 
Why should he, then, even try side- 
stepping the better known, to tamper 
with the less understood, when dis- 
order appears? 

The disagreeable things of the 
world are passing. The mechanical 
millennium is coming. The binder 
has saved the backaches of the farmer. 
The vacuum cleaner has lessened the 
labor of the housewife. The electric 
car saves the time and energy of the 
commuter. The elevator saves much 
leg-weariness for us all. Progress not 
less significant is also to be found in 
the healing art. A wise man does 
not go for weeks with a rampant 
functional disorder of his intestines. 
He has the deranged mechanism fixed 
and the intestine behaves. He has 
learned that "costiveness" means 
something wrong and he goes to one 
who has studied the delicate mechanism 
involved to have the wrong located 
and corrected. There is something 

[so 



SOMETHING WRONG 

wrong with any man's information 
or judgment when he takes pills 
(chemicals) for an evident mechanical 
disorder. 

Conditions have causes — be it in 
social, political, or physical life. No 
adequate remedy is available without 
a knowledge of causes. Osteopathy 
concerns itself with the birthplace of 
our ills — with the something wrong. 
It recognizes that the cause is most 
frequently structural, but may include 
other factors: environmental, occupa- 
tional, dietetic, parasitic, etc. 

A Missourian apprehended and first 
made general application of the prin- 
ciple of adjustment of structure as a 
prerequisite to normal function. Gross 
adjustments, such as the setting of 
dislocations, had been recognized and 
practiced for a long time prior to his 
coming, but the conception and ap- 
plication of this principle of adjust- 
ment to the minute anatomy was the 
product of the brain of Dr. Andrew 

[32] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Taylor Still. All honor to him! He 
uncovered a fundamental biological 
truth which complements and unifies 
all other therapeutic truths gleaned 
by centuries of experience. He pre- 
sented a system of therapy at once in 
harmony with anatomy, physiology, pa- 
thology, bacteriology, theology (God 
in man), and all other "ologies" whose 
foundation is demonstrated truth. 
He discovered that there was always 
something wrong mechanically some- 
where in the body or disease and dis- 
order would not be. 

The logic of adjusting structure in 
order to normalize a function stood as 
an undiscovered continent on the face 
of the physical world until Dr. Still 
became the Columbus to demonstrate 
that scientific therapy was not a flat 
earth checkered with lands of ex- 
periment and waters of uncertainty, 
but a fine sphere — a complete whole. 

The laws of life are harmonious. 
Dr. Still was right! Osteopathy is 

[33] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

right! ! He formulated two laws 
which in their importance to the hu- 
man race stand beside Newton's law 
of gravitation and Darwin's law of 
evolution. The first is that normal 
structure is a prerequisite for normal 
function, and the second is the law 
of the chemical immunity of the body. 
Both have absolutely stood the test 
of time and the investigations of 
scientific research. It was upon these 
fundamental principles and laws that 
he founded his school of healing. 
He choose to call the application of 
those laws, or his system of practice, 
"osteopathy." Its complete ramifi- 
cations are not yet fully explored — 
but as a basic, biological, and thera- 
peutic truth it has attained a place 
in science that cannot be disturbed. 
Superstition, prejudice, hearsay, and 
ignorance long formed the four side 
walls for the stockade restraining 
general scientific knowledge of dis- 
ease. Such knowledge seeks liberty in 

[34] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

this land of liberty. Issue its emanci- 
pation proclamation, so far as you per- 
sonally are concerned. Tumble all your 
superstition, prejudice, hearsays, and 
lack of information out into your 
mental backyard and place a contract 
for a new home for ideas — not a stock- 
ade — with the well-rated firm of " Think 
& Reason." They are architects of 
ability. 

Just because a man cannot grasp 
the anatomical and physiological re- 
lationships that link a subluxated rib 
with asthma is no proof that such 
does not exist. Many mental engines 
stall at the osteopathic concept. Some 
even backfire and others let their 
rear wheels spin in the mud. 

Mark this word about osteopathy. 
Weigh it in carats or tons, as you 
choose. She is a real therapeutic 
"tank," stalls at no scientific evidence, 
and goes "over the top" to achieve- 
ment and victory. 

Show me the man who has studied 

[35] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

the body with the idea of mastering 
its mechanics and I will nod my 
approval to him as the man I would 
rather have, above all others, inves- 
tigate my condition when something 
goes wrong. 

An osteopath may be called a "fool 
and a fanatic," but he is hospitable 
to demonstrated truth. Sometimes he 
knows no more than to push a rib 
or vertebra through its normal range 
of movement and let a poor sufferer 
get well. Just catalogue, if you will, 
the things that might have been 
done to that unhappy individual in 
the name of "science" without so 
much as locating the offending rib. 
Knowledge is crowding out guess- 
work. The knowledge which osteop- 
athy has given to the world pushes 
backward into history many gen- 
eral misconceptions of the origin and 
nature of disease. 

The brainiest man in Wisertown can 
find few answers to human ills in 

[36] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

the pharmacopeia. Influences may be 
there detailed, but as answers they 
are as unpromising as fables in mathe- 
matics. Of the drug family, there 
are but three whom the osteopath 
delights to call his friends. The 
friendship is on scientific grounds. 
Their first names each begin with A, 
Antiseptic, Antidote, and Anaesthetic. 
They are noble sons of chemistry. 
They are subject to service to make 
life more tolerable for mankind. 

Drugs as remedies are going the 
way of the ox-cart. It certainly is 
illogical and worthy of relegation to 
give a chemical "something" for a 
symptom when a definite mechanical 
cause can be found to account for 
the something wrong. 

This little conversation took place 
in an osteopath's office after his pa- 
tient had taken six months of treatment. 
She was a woman of thirty-five 
and had been relieved of suffering that 
had tortured her for twenty years. 

[37] 




Drugs as remedies are going the way of the ox-cart 



SOMETHING WRONG 

She said, "Just to think, my 
doctor used to tell me such suffering 
was the 'heritage of woman." 

The osteopathic physician inquired, 
"Was he right?" 

She replied, "No, it was the herit- 
age of medical ignorance as to cause 
and effect." 

Truth is always the sunlight, but 
there are lots of shadows — some of 
them exceedingly dense. He stands 
in a dense shadow who tries to put 
the laws of mechanics in a flask, 
under a porous plaster, or compress 
them into tablet form. Science says: 
"It can't be done." 

To perceive correctly is the first 
requisite to straight thinking. Red ink 
does not make a love letter nor pink 
pills a remedy. Disease is disordered 
function. Structure determines func- 
tion. When function goes lame, look 
to the structure for cause. 

Reason is an attribute of man. 
It should be applied to the ills of man. 

[39] 



i feMfe/J?.,. 




Science says, "/£ can'* 6e e/one" 



SOMETHING WRONG 

So it is, but much of the reasoning 
is not reasonable, it is based on im- 
perfect observation of fundamentals. 
Truth should not be sought through 
the wrong end of the telescope. A 
look at the tongue gives one a poor 
idea of the twisted spinal joint that 
is indirectly impairing the activity of 
a kidney; to study the effect of dead 
" bugs" on the living body prepares 
one rather imperfectly to set a sub- 
luxated innominate bone. 

Values make the race of life a 
gamble. Strange what a stake some 
will play at the game. There have 
been men who would pay more for a 
pedigreed calf, any day, than for the 
health and welfare of themselves or 
their children. Curious, is it not, how 
many bird, art, and literary clubs 
there are, yet what little value is 
placed upon club studies in matters 
pertaining to physical man? Would 
you not question the devotion of a 
parent for a child when the value 

[41] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

placed upon a physician's friendship 
exceeded the value placed upon the 
comfort or even the life of a child? 
Such evaluation is not uncommon. 
Strange how esteemed tradition out- 
weighs the values of scientific evidence! 
If you are interested in life you are 
interested in osteopathy. Osteopathy 
aims that the structure through which 
human life is manifest shall be perfect 
in architecture — structurally as God 
intended. 



[42] 



PART II 

Find it, fix it, leave it alone 

— A. T. Still. 

Funny what a sacred sack of musty 
notions we delight to carry, consent- 
ing to neither a peek nor a puncture. 
Our sack may be weighty or light, 
yet avoirdupois does not determine 
worth. Values are appraised by those 
faithful old assessors, Truth, Utility, 
and Desirability. Their estimate on 
our treasured opinions may save us 
taxes. 

Opinions grow in a peculiar mix- 
ture termed "mental soil." Our be- 
liefs spring from a conglomerate 
clod of truth and untruth, information 
and ignorance, learning and teaching, 
knowledge and hearsay, investigation 
and prejudice, confidence and dis- 
trust, evidence and assumption, per- 

[43] 











lb 



■■■':;;■■■.,': 



WTmf o sacred sack of musty notions we 
delight to carry 



SOMETHING WRONG 

ception and deception, progress and 
tradition, desire and satisfaction, 
choice and habit, fact and fancy. 

The same soil will grow roses or 
ragweed. Blossoms depend upon the 
planting and care. Farmers break 
up their acres with the expectation of 
more profitable croppage. They have 
learned that occasionally to turn the 
sod frees useful ingredients. Every 
man is his own mental farmer. Enter- 
prise prompts him to furrow occasion- 
ally his intellectual estate that he may 
harvest more practical opinions. 

Epoch-marking ideas often do not 
receive a diplomatic welcome. 

The views of Dr. Still with ref- 
erence to disease were mental vapor- 
ings to those worshiping tradition. 
The practical service to man of the 
Doctor's observations are still being 
surveyed and charted. The mechanis- 
tic conception of structure and func- 
tion is being proven the legitimate 
child of science. 

[45] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

When the mechanism of man ex- 
hibits something wrong, its capacity 
for defense against fellow or microbe 
is correspondingly impaired. Imagine 
a man winning a boxing contest with 
a sprained shoulder or a woman put- 
ting typhoid or pneumonia to rout 
while the mechanism controlling her 
ductless glands is suffering serious 
mechanical disturbance. 

Bugs and bacilli have their laws 
of life just as do men, animals, plants, 
and every living thing. When a vi- 
cious bug encounters a man, the game 
is played according to Darwinian rule 
— "The survival of the fittest!" 

Law is the governor of life. Things 
do not click by chance in an orderly 
world. Health is not a product of 
guesswork and gambling. Existence, 
whether of a single-celled protozoan or 
of a countless-celled man, is ruled by 
law. We are physico-chemical mecha- 
nisms and as such must be subject 
to the rules of the biological game. 

[ 4 6] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

When our physical structure is dis- 
turbed, it must be promptly adjusted 
or it scores against health in this 
little sport called "life." 

He who would be a John Burroughs 
of germdom must borrow the eyes of 
the microscope. Even then he will 
have to be a keen observer to record 
accurately the natural history, the 
life incidents, of many of our bug 
contemporaries. The sleuths on the 
trail of these little compromisers of 
human happiness are many. Bug 
biographies are being written. We 
have learned that man has both 
friends and enemies among the micro 
tribes. In fact, without the aid of 
some of these little friends he could 
not live. Without encountering the 
enmity of others few men die. Some 
of the enemy band, once defeated, 
make a lifelong truce with a man — 
for instance the germs of smallpox 
and most of those causing the diseases 
of childhood. Others agree to an 

[47] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

armistice of rather indefinite duration 
— influenza and pneumonia may be 
cited as examples. 

The presence of the enemy germs, 
with their poisons that destroy, calls 
to action, for the preservation of the 
body, a defensive mechanism of which 
the ductless glands form the training 
stations and munition factories for 
the defenders. Antibodies are manu- 
factured and used to bomb the in- 
vaders to destruction or rout. When 
the local training stations show un- 
preparedness for the enemy assaults, 
man must capitulate. With an ade- 
quate preparedness on the part of 
the body's defensive organization, the 
germs surrender. Preparedness im- 
plies mechanical perfection in all de- 
tails, associated with the defensive 
organization. 

Experiments are being made with 
serums, antitoxins, and vaccines where- 
by this military service of prepared- 
ness of one animal may be appropri- 

[ 4 8] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

ated by the other. Just as in war, 
the manufactures of one nation may 
be purchased for use by the military 
machine of another. In some measure 
these organic trading efforts have 
given promise of success. However, 
the biological and chemical reactions 
of each organism in the face of 
even the same enemy are so varied 
and involve processes so beyond 
the present powers of man to in- 
vestigate, that only a measure of suc- 
cess has attended such experiments 
in biological commerce. In actual 
practice, osteopathy often proves its 
potency in assisting the defensive 
mechanism to operate successfully 
when serums and vaccines fail. 

The intelligence inherent in each 
organism knows best its own de- 
fensive needs and limitations, and 
the primary requisite seems to be 
to have freedom from all obstructions 
so that it can make requisition from 
normal sources and continue to defend 

[49] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

itself successfully against hostile in- 
vasions. 

In the battles of life, man, you 
see, is not the captain of his own 
defense. He forms just the battle- 
ground whereon is determined his 
existence or demise. All he can do is 
to increase his natural resistance and 
to clear the field for action. Over 
the marshaling of the soldiers (white 
blood corpuscles) and munitions (anti- 
bodies and antitoxins) he has no au- 
thority. Nature has wisely placed that 
outside the command of the will. 

In the light of recent biological 
studies, the time-stained, popular 
notions of disease need the laundry. 
Yet some people seem to prefer the 
soiled linen of antiquated ideas. 

The body presents, as a whole, a 
commonwealth of cells, a chemical 
caldron, an electrical instrument, a 
vital mechanism finished from the 
hand of the Creator. The efficiency 
of an electrical instrument is condi- 

[50] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

tioned upon its being structurally and 
chemically complete. The efficiency 
of a chemical manufacturing plant, in 
the course of a constant supply, de- 
pends upon each department doing 
its assignment with perfect freedom 
of motion. 

The perfect relationship of parts 
and the food supply are the prime con- 
siderations for the effectual operation 
of the human organism. The fuel (food) 
for the boiler must be adequate in 
kind and quantity and the engine must 
have all its parts properly in place 
to convert the energy of the fuel 
into useful work. 

Our mechanism is more delicate in 
its organization and operation than 
our IngersoIIs, and it needs just as 
careful and infinitely more intelligent 
adjustment. 

Demeriting deviations of the bodily 
structure may pass in obscurity 
beneath untrained fingers. A blind 
man reads a page of embossed dots. 

[51] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Could you? The grasp of a pen- 
holder over a prescription blank is 
imperfect training for palpating many 
minor deviations from normal. 

You do not need a sledge hammer 
to repair a watch, nor is violence an 
essential of corrective work on the 
frame of man. No one would expect 
a youngster to pull hard enough to 
set a dislocated shoulder, nor does it 
take the strength of a Sampson to 
establish normal mobility in some of 
the delicate articulations of the spine. 
Knowledge and judgment form the 
balance wheel in human engineering. 
The man who tells you that oste- 
opathy spells " rough usage" is either 
void of intelligent osteopathic ex- 
perience or perpetrates a deliberate 
falsehood. 

Did you ever hear of some one 
being advised that they "could not 
stand it" to take osteopathic treat- 
ment, pugilistic tactics being im- 
plied? Just because you drive into 



SOMETHING WRONG 

a garage is no indication that the 
foreman of that institution or his 
subordinates will unceremoniously at- 
tack your car with a sixteen-pound 
maul, merely for general results, giv- 
ing the machine a sound beating-up 
from radiator to spare-rim. Four or 
more years of training ought to have 
imparted as much discretion to the 
osteopathic brain as an apprenticeship 
has to that of the garage mechanic. 
The proposition is simple. Find some- 
thing wrong and fix it. That is what 
Mr. Automobile Expert does; that is 
what Dr. Osteopath should do. It 
suggests neither the sledge hammer 
nor the roped arena. 

An osteopath is neither a hermit 
nor a miser, in this world of golden 
biological truth. He is a workman 
doing the obvious to assist nature. 

Occasionally take council of reason. 
When you sit on a chair until your 
foot is asleep, will you wake it with an 
electric spark or will you stand and 

[53] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

let the nerve message pass? When 
a slipped rib irritates the nervous sup- 
ply to the stomach, will a white powder 
permanently calm your disquietude, or 
would it be more logical to adjust the 
rib? Suppose your shoulder was dis- 
located and you suffered pain in the 
arm. That pain is undoubtedly due 
to pressure on the nerves of the arm. 
You would not expect liniment to 
relieve the condition. The shoulder 
should be put in place. If a bone in 
the neck is slipped from its normal po- 
sition, pressing upon the same nerve, 
although at a different place, would not 
the same principle of righting the 
something wrong apply? Electricity, 
liniment, baking, or pain killing are 
far from scientific procedures with 
the given premises. 

The demand for osteopathic service 
— more and better professional equip- 
ment for rendering that service — has 
stimulated for osteopathy a tremendous 
institutional growth. Colleges, hospi- 

[54] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

tals, sanitariums, research institutes, 
clinics, associations, specialist groups, 
books, magazines, conventions are all 
the fruitage of this demand. It would 
take a large catalogue to list them all. 
These are each and all serviceable in 
the production, preservation, or dis- 
semination of scientific therapeutic 
knowledge. They form the battle-line 
of militant osteopathy against the al- 
lied forces of less scientific therapy. 

You have legs for ambulation; ears 
for captivating conversation; eyes for 
mental photography; brains for the 
manufacture of opinions. These were 
intended for the joy of your indi- 
vidual use. Joy is found in their ex- 
ercise, for pleasure is a purpose of 
life. Use these truth-scenting organs 
to the point of pleasure in the re- 
liability of the knowledge of yourself 
acquired. Better not borrow too many 
ready-made opinions on subjects of 
politics or health. Bliss thus acquired 
may prove but a camouflage. 

t55l 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Pianos are the product of a factory, 
so are osteopaths. The osteopathic 
factories are Iabled colleges. There 
are seven between the Pacific and 
Boston Harbor. Each college has a 
conscience. Its faculty knows that 
"Osteopathy is knowledge or it is 
nothing." Education implies training. 
Training should be directed to the 
end it purports to serve. Man's en- 
gineer should naturally be trained in 
mechanics — human mechanics. This 
is what an osteopathic student catches 
in his brain-bucket at these intel- 
lectual fountains. The mental diges- 
tion of the student is in high speed 
for four years. He receives the hunch 
that the human machine requires a 
master-mechanic. He is determined to 
qualify and he does. He is not taught 
that a drug store is the beacon light 
to physical salvation, or that life op- 
erates except through structure. No 
chicks are hatched from scrambled 
eggs. The osteopath is instructed to 

[56] 




No chicks are hatched from scrambled eggs 



SOMETHING WRONG 

find and correct the something wrong 
when life's harp is out of tune. 

An engine may be damaged very 
quickly if certain bolts are allowed to 
go untightened. We give the nuts and 
screws attention on our locomotives; 
we should not neglect the joints in 
our own framework. The spine, with 
its complicated assembly of bony, 
ligamentous, muscular, and nervous 
tissue, is the switchboard of physical 
trouble. 

Prevention is better than repair. 
To correct the minor structural de- 
fects of the body promises as much for 
the longevity of the human machine 
as do the minor repairs to the power 
plant. Herein is where osteopathy be- 
comes a friend to the long life. 

There are few "One Hoss Shays." 
Seldom do people go to pieces "all 
at once." The beginnings of illness 
are often "weak points" in the 
anatomy which, neglected, mean the 
foundering of the good ship "Health." 

[58] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

An aviator is not only anxious to 
have his eagle soar for the moment. 
He wants it to be kept in flying trim. 
We presumably desire the same of 
our little monoplanes. If we took as 
good care of our body as he does of 
his aircraft, to see that all parts are 
properly adjusted and all needs sup- 
plied, we would not be taking the 
aviator's chance on "keeping up" if 
something goes wrong. 

The synonym for osteopathy is sur- 
gery. Surgery is described in Webster's 
dictionary as "The act and art of 
treating injuries or diseases by manual 
operations." This admirably describes 
the procedures of osteopathy applied 
to the correction of parts that evi- 
dence something wrong. Treating 
means adjusting and implies carefully 
and skillfully replacing the tissues to 
their normal relationships; not sledge- 
hammer thrusts upon the delicate 
organic structures associated with the 
human body, not massage or rubbing, 

[59] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

— but just the above as defined 
under surgery. 

Cases which actually require opera- 
tive surgery are diagnosed as surgical 
and referred either to an osteopathic 
surgeon or a medical surgeon for such 
operative procedures as may be needed. 

Partnerships began with the ele- 
ments. For practical purposes, early 
in the earth's history, oxygen formed 
a partnership with two hydrogen com- 
panions and gave forth water. There 
are sixteen elements cooperating to 
form man. Partnerships of more or 
less magnitude have continued to be 
formed throughout the chemical, bio- 
logical, and social world during the 
course of our evolution as reciprocal 
advantage has been apparent. The 
partnership of osteopathy and surgery 
came as a natural consequence of 
the mutual benefits to be obtained. 
What could be done by adjustment 
of structure need not be attempted 
by mutilation of form. That which 

[60] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

could not be accomplished by correc- 
tion of relationships may be cor- 
rected by incision and repair. The 
partnership has been a success. This 
understanding between osteopathy and 
surgery leads to accomplishments im- 
possible without cooperation. 

A name does not determine value. 
Yet values may be determined by 
a name. Osteopathy was the name 
chosen by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still 
for the system of therapy he origi- 
nated. In this day of imitations, de- 
ceptions, and impositions, look for the 
name. The statutes have thrown a 
protection about the word. It guides 
to those trained in human mechanics. 

Counterfeit osteopathy bespeaks the 
worth of the genuine. Things of little 
value are not counterfeited. Spurious 
bank deposit slips are unheard of. 
It is the accompaniment of the slips, 
as they pass the teller's window, that 
are imitated. These imitations of gen- 
uine osteopathy appear under vari- 

[61] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

ous names and banners of uncertain 
hue. If you prefer shoddy when wool 
is available, help yourself. Wearing 
qualities offer better testimony than 
a shrewd salesman. 

Osteopathy won its first credit 
marks by giving the "knock out" 
to disorders that had shaken their 
fists in defiance of every previous 
attempt to overcome them. A system 
of procedure that avails when tried 
as a last resort is even more satis- 
factory if tested when something goes 
wrong all of a sudden, as in the acute 
disorders. This is not a fairy tale. 
The evidence is sustained in the court 
of experience. 

Laboratories are maintained for the 
investigation of such properties and 
activities of matter as are not dis- 
cernible without special apparatus. 
Suppose we take a look at osteop- 
athy under laboratory examination. At 
Chicago there is an institution whose 
every purpose is to put osteopathy 

[62] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

on trial. It is called the A. T. Still 
Research Institute. Every experiment 
on thousands of animals, every chemical 
and biological investigation that has 
been completed, has but served to sub- 
stantiate the mechanistic theory as to 
the cause and cure of disease. 

The history of osteopathy dates 
from June, 1874. It was then that 
there came to Dr. Andrew Taylor 
Still the first clear vision of the 
necessity for perfect structural re- 
lationships in the body in order that 
the organic functions might be normal. 
Years have gone and with them has 
passed "The Father of Osteopathy. " 
His death occurred December 12, 
19 1 7, at the age of eighty-nine. He 
had lived to see his theories accepted 
by men given to scientific investiga- 
tion. The truth which he discovered 
will contribute to human welfare so 
long as knowledge shall endure. A 
monument was unveiled in his honor 
at Kirks ville, Missouri, in June, 191 7, 

[63] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

but a greater monument is found in 
the hearts of truth-loving people who 
appreciate his discoveries leading to 
therapeutic reform. 

Did you ever hear of a laboratory 
producing a drop of blood, an ounce 
of lymph, or even a tear, true to 
the chemical formula of nature? It 
has not been done — it is not likely 
that it will be accomplished. Nature 
knows best. Fix what is wrong and 
let nature have her own way. 

Tonics are the greatest of deceivers. 
They substitute fantasy for reality. 
They do not add food or fuel values 
of consequence. They are like the 
theatrical villain who, coming to 
the stage widow under promise of 
great allurements, robs her of jewels. 
Don't be deceived by stimulants. They 
merely help you to squander your 
reserves more quickly. 

A man might be hired very cheaply 
to pour chloride of lime down your 
sink. You might even do it yourself. 

[6 4 i 



SOMETHING WRONG 

When sewer gas is leaking, and you 
know it, you want a plumber to 
overhaul the piping, not something 
which will quell the stench for a day. 
Chloride of lime may be cheaper than 
plumber's bills, but how about the 
consequences? Results rather than ex- 
pense is a more becoming entry in 
the ledger of common sense. 

Beginnings in life are small, as are 
the beginnings of the dissolution of 
life. It took us a long time to digest 
the theory that we and the anthropoid 
ape had a common ancestry. Science 
now tells us that that animal is a 
comparatively near relation. The real 
beginning of man was in the ad- 
vent of life upon earth. First came 
the bacteria; later, the protozoa — 
the primary animal cell. So, in the 
dissolution of life, the item that con- 
cerns us more — in the cell there lies 
the origin of death. Cells of our body 
are constantly dying, and, so long as 
health obtains, are being replaced. 

[6 5 ] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

If something goes wrong with any part 
of the body, shutting off the nutrition 
or drainage from a group of cells, 
the cells weaken and die, just as your 
finger — a multitude of cells — might 
die if a string were tied about it tight 
enough and long enough to strangle the 
circulation. Suppose that the group 
of cells so involved controlled a vi- 
tal function, such as do the nerve 
cells to the heart, the lungs, kidneys, 
or the suprarenal capsules. Disease 
or disordered function would be mani- 
fest in the organ these nerve cells 
controlled, and unless something was 
done to relieve the situation the death 
of the organism as a whole would 
ensue just as surely as the finger 
would die if the string was not cut 
or loosened. 

We are all dying, a cell or two at a 
time — our existence depends, like 
that of a popular magazine, upon 
continued individual renewals. There 
are supposed to be something like 
1661 



SOMETHING WRONG 

twenty-six billions of cells in our 
dwelling-place. When they are all 
dead — so are we. The little dams 
across the river of life that arise 
from obstructions to the blood stream 
should be located early and removed 
if we are to be successful in deferring 
that unwelcome event. 

Have you heard that an Osteopath 
"rubs"? The word was never spoken 
by one who knows osteopathy. Would 
you say a jeweler's chief occupation 
was squinting, because he holds a 
glass with one eye and explores the 
vitals of your watch? He uses the 
glass to discover something wrong. So 
the osteopath explores with the hand 
(palpates) the parts of the body to 
locate trouble. He depends upon his 
sense of touch to enlighten him as to 
tissue relationships. His chief con- 
cern is not to rub where trouble has 
been found, but to correct. Rubbing, 
as a remedy, is massage, not osteop- 
athy. The osteopath may prescribe 

[6 7 ] 




Would you say a jeweler's chief occupation 
was squinting? 



SOMETHING WRONG 

or practice massage, but when this is 
done it is administered as massage, not 
as the scientific adjustment of parts — 
osteopathic practice. 

Fads are the children of fashion. 
They are not even second cousins of 
science. The high-brow who guessed 
osteopathy a fad was mistaken in 
the parentage. 

Science is absolutely impartial. The 
laws of the universe were codified 
before man began to argue and as- 
sume. It is not what people say — 
be they professional or layman — 
that determines the verdict on the 
truth or falsity of osteopathic tenets; 
the evidence is an open book read by 
those who can interpret the language 
of nature. 

The reactions of the body are both 
physical and chemical. It is the chem- 
ical action, reaction, and interaction 
of atoms in our bodies, that keeps 
us alive. Drugs are known as being 
chemically active. Therefore, it has 

[6 9 ] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

been thought that they were efficient 
in altering the reactions in the body 
when disease obtruded. 

It is true that drugs may alter the re- 
actions of the body. Observations and 
investigations, however, have shown 
that the production of such artificial 
reactions which are positively efficient 
in assisting the body in its defensive 
or reparative activities are almost as 
rare as goblins. The natural reactions 
are obscure. No one knows all about 
them. No one can have an under- 
standing of the exact defects of the 
equations as to time and place, nor 
the kind or quantity of chemicals rep- 
resented in any apparent deficiency. 
The body manufactures according to 
its own complicated chemical for- 
mulas. Call to witness the healing 
wound, the fountain of saliva, the 
repairing fracture, the Iactating breast. 
Specialized cells take the elements 
from the food, first breaking down 
and then rebuilding them into new 

[70] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

compounds. If the body is structur- 
ally right, this will be done without 
hesitation to meet specific need. Cor- 
rection of structure is indicated, rather 
than uncertain dosage, when disease 
is present. 

Success is a goal that means much 
in any man's life. To reach success 
in our efforts to maintain or regain 
health means more than most other 
brands of achievement. The exhibit 
of disorders that have the words 
"successfully treated'' written over 
them under osteopathic ministrations 
is large. One investigator put it this 
way, "Osteopathy has the greatest 
therapeutic agent known to science. 
That agent is simply nothing more 
than the adjustment of structure." 

"How does an osteopath treat, any- 
way?" you may have heard some one 
asking. The answer has not often 
been complete or satisfying. The 
cloaking of the mechanism of the 
body in fat and fascia, muscle and 

[71] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

membrane has obscured from many 
just to what depth the vision of the 
osteopath might penetrate. The elec- 
trician repairing a motor or the 
engineer a locomotive is not so handi- 
capped. The osteopath must know 
the anatomy so thoroughly that, un- 
der all masking of relationships, his 
mental view of the parts is clear. Vis- 
ualizing the normal structures, hunt- 
ing for abnormalities, he proceeds to 
"fix"/' in so far as he is able, that which 
he finds abnormal. He has no rule 
of conduct except to find and correct 
something perceptibly wrong. 

Hitch one horse to each end of a 
wagon, when would you expect to 
reach your destination? Nature and 
drugs pull in opposite directions. Os- 
teopathy and nature form a team. 
They pull together and arrive. 

The staid old colt of progress often 
shies at new truth, but that does not 
prevent a thing being new and at the 
same time true. Osteopathy is not 

[72] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

new in the sense that it is experi- 
mental. Twenty-five years and more 
evidence that it has long passed the 
experimental stage. It is new, how- 
ever, in comparison with the theory 
and practice of drug therapy. 

The individual osteopath may be 
in error in a matter of diagnosis, 
technique, or judgment. Failure of 
the individual osteopath reflects no 
more upon the science of osteopathy 
than the farmer who fails discredits 
the science of agriculture. 

Information never benefited a man 
to whom it was a stranger. The ben- 
efit comes to him who knows. To 
know of the mechanical basis of dis- 
ease may mean life to him who un- 
derstands when and where and how 
to seek for a practical application of 
that knowledge. 

Osteopathy offers a peculiar service 
to crippled nature. Health is nature's 
plan materialized. You can begin at 
the cradle to see that normal struc- 

[73] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

ture is maintained. The laws of form, 
place, and function apply at all ages. 
No child is too young to have some- 
thing corrected if it needs fixing — 
few are so old that it is not worth 
while at least to make the effort to 
maintain normal structural conditions. 

Take the case of our babies ; a tripod 
of causes support sickness in children. 
Malnutrition, infection, and injury 
form the legs of the tripod. Knowl- 
edge of the dietetic needs of the child 
cripples one leg, care and quarantine 
is the answer to another, and osteop- 
athy is the logical desideratum for 
the third. With these props knocked 
from under, diseases of children drop 
from their high place of distressing 
frequency to more endurable levels. 

Nature is no speed maniac. She 
is deliberate, but her plans carry. 
Haste is not a part of her program. 
The dignity of her stride is impressive. 
You might plant a garden and wish it 
to provide your dinner a week later. 

[74] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

You would be justly disappointed. 
Many a one with distorted structure 
and disordered function has been 
almost as impatient. He has looked, 
under treatment, for results in days 
when, if he knew nature better, his 
expectancy would have been gauged by 
months. This applies in many chronic 
cases where any process of repair 
must follow slowly as life builds — a 
cell at a time. The corrective require- 
ments in any case corresponds to 
(a) the extent of the repairs to be 
made, (6) the ability of the body to 
secure and prepare the needed ma- 
terials, and (c) the rapidity with which 
the debris may be removed. 

As a little question of engineer- 
ing philosophy, would you skim a 
pond or drain it? Would you try to 
"sweeten" a swamp chemically or by 
ditching? Would it be better to put 
sprays up the nose for a catarrhal 
condition or open the lymphatic and 
venous "drain cocks" beneath the 

[75] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

jaw? Treat to assist the tissues to 
maintain their normal resistance, and 
microbes must shift for themselves. 
Few cat-tails or reeds grace the marshes 
that have been effectively drained. 

A theory is one thing; a fact is 
another. The theory of cough syrups 
does not look comfortable in the com- 
pany of the fact that there often is 
an obstreperous rib irritating the nerves 
to the bronchial tubes or pleura. 

Organs can take little excursions 
from home and duty as well as do 
bones and ligaments. Gravity is al- 
ways busy. This old earth attracts 
a stomach, a pelvic organ, a kidney, 
a colon, just as it did Newton's apple. 
Unless there is adequate tissue tone, it 
will pull them from their place in 
the human plans and specifications. 
When something is wrong with them, 
it needs correcting as much as does 
any part of the frame that is twisted. 
The body needs food and "fixin'" It 
does not need a potion or poison. 

[76] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

You will not want to burden your 
mental freight-train with all the de- 
tails of just how an osteopathic 
physician applies his art. General 
knowledge of the mechanical causes of 
disease and the result of treatment 
is sufficient. Sometime you may be 
sufficiently interested to sift to the 
bottom all the osteopathic information 
available. You may even have the 
honor, some day, of seeing your own, 
or your child's, or your grandchild's 
name on an osteopathic diploma. 

Just one chain of events in a single 
case may be outlined to let you see 
the wonderfully complicated struc- 
ture and function, also the extreme 
delicacy of adjustment and action- 
complex, which the body exhibits. 
Suppose, for instance, we follow as 
closely as we may the mischief trail 
along which travels the mind scouting 
for causes in such a condition as 
exophthalmic goiter. This disorder 
presents what we term a symptom- 

[77] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

complex, several evident errors of func- 
tion acting simultaneously. There is 
protrusion of the eyeball (exophthal- 
mos), swelling of the thyroid gland 
(goiter), and rapid heart action (tachy- 
cardia), nervous symptoms, and nu- 
tritional disturbance. 

The osteopathic thinking machine 
operates either forward or in reverse. 
It reasons backward from symptoms 
to causes and forward from causes to 
effects. In a case of exophthalmic 
goiter presented, an osteopath applies 
logic thus: The thyroid is enlarged. 
It must be enlarged from one of 
several causes: either to meet the 
demands of greater activity, over- 
stimulation, faulty drainage, accu- 
mulation of normal secretion, or 
overgrowth of tissue in the gland, etc. 
Physiology pictures for us the func- 
tions of the gland. Organic chemistry 
reveals something of the action and 
interaction of its products. Anatomy 
tells its nerve connections, blood sup- 

[78] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

ply, venous and lymphatic drainage. 
Each one of these anatomical struc- 
tures contributing to the perfect action 
of the gland, the osteopathic fingers 
explore to locate possible trouble. 
Whenever palpable structural disorder 
is found the attempt is made to 
correct it. The success of the treat- 
ment depends upon the skill in locat- 
ing or the ability to correct the 
something wrong (provided that there 
is not actual tumor formation or de- 
generation in the tissues of the gland; 
then it becomes a surgical condition). 
The internal secretions of the thy- 
roid influence the heart rate, are the 
controlling influence in the liberations 
of energy in the body, have an in- 
fluence on the activity of the nervous 
and digestive systems and other func- 
tions not so well understood. So 
when the disturbance to the thyroid 
is corrected, the gland will function 
normally and govern as it should 
the activity of the other organs with 

[79] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

which it is associated nervously or 
chemically. 

It is possible to trace, so far as 
known, the links between the dis- 
turbed activity and the faulty struc- 
tural relationships in practically all 
disorders from baby's colic to grand- 
father's hardened arteries. The per- 
verted physiological processes resulting 
in pathological changes are, however, 
often exceedingly complex. There are 
sixty or more recognized organic com- 
pounds which the body manufactures 
for its own use; a chemical disturb- 
ance in any one of these, and disorder 
more or less severe follows. The 
remedy is rarely to be found in 
attempting to supply from outside 
sources the deficiency, but rather an 
attempt to correct the interrelation- 
ships of the various parts of the mech- 
anism is indicated. Then nature's 
remedies will be normally supplied 
from the body's own factories and 
storehouses. 

[80] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

There are few "specifics." They 
number but three or four. With 
these exceptions, no authorities affirm 
that drugs cure. Search the pages of 
modern medical literature for your 
own satisfaction, if you will not credit 
the statement. The trend of general 
scientific thought more and more ap- 
proaches the osteopathic concept of 
the self-sufficiency of each organism. 
Each organism is capable of managing 
and prefers to manage its own affairs. 

As for the adaptability of osteop- 
athy, it, with its ally surgery, is 
prepared to provide scientific care for 
human ills, suffering only the limita- 
tions of the individual practitioner 
and the recuperative reserve of nature. 
Specialists have arisen devoting their 
time and attention to particular phases 
of the application of the osteopathic 
principles. This shows the breadth of 
osteopathic applicability and adapta- 
bility. It is not a system "good for 
one thing" or for "some things," but 

[81] 



SOMETHING WRONG 

its logic and treatment apply to each 
function and all structures wherever 
there is exhibited something wrong. 

What a reflection on ability to 
locate mechanical disproportions to 
have a tailor or dressmaker be the first 
to observe a short leg, a high hip, a 
drooped shoulder, a flat chest, a cur- 
vature, when these conditions should 
have been caught in the mental 
camera of the "family physician/' 
Ten to one, he had never scientifically 
investigated structural conditions, but 
kept wondering and experimenting as 
to whether powders, potions, or pills 
would remedy the result of such 
faulty structure. 

Would you like a simple, little defi- 
nition to paste in your hat? Memo- 
rize this: Osteopathy is the application 
of the law of adjustment to whatever 
may be interfering with the harmonious 
functioning of the human mechanism. 
There it is, postage-stamp size. Like 
a stamp it carries far. 

[82] 




mam 



; J 


1 




f 


K' 1 


* 






77? ey believe what they are told, from Santa 
Claus to soothing syrup 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Nature is the great physician; man 
but a humble assistant. Few children 
can spell incredulous when they are 
five. They believe what they are 
told, from Santa Claus to soothing 
syrup. The idea of taking "some- 
thing" for something wrong has often 
grown up with them. Unlike the 
obvious absurdity of an individual 
Santa Claus, the absurdity of the 
drug fetish grips their opinions, be- 
cause for them the mystery of disease 
still holds. It is not surprising that 
it continues to do so, for opportunities 
for original, scientific investigation 
are, to the masses, denied. In the 
absence of personal investigation and 
knowledge, they must simply go on 
crediting what they are told. 

The inquiring find the more rational 
way. Thought is the great emanci- 
pator of the individual and the race. 
A man is never too old to gather a few 
dry sticks of experience, kindle a fire, 
and thereby enliven his judgment. 

[8 4 ] 










When the hum of your "works" doesnt sound 
quite natural 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Be it morning, noon, or midnight, 
when there comes a tap on the door 
of your consciousness that something 
is wrong somewhere with the work- 
ing of your physical engine, Think! 
Thought and action has ever pro- 
vided the adaptation and preservation 
of the race. Your approaching sta- 
tus may depend upon them at the 
moment. 

It may be your carburetor is sput- 
tering; it may be a grating of gears; 
it may be a cough in the muffler; it 
may be your clutch that is slipping; 
it may be your battery has short- 
circuited; but when the hum of your 
" works" doesn't sound quite natural 
you must realize that somewhere there 
is something wrong. 

Just remember that what you need 
most of all, just then, is a mechanician; 
one trained to locate the mechanical 
troubles of your go-cart and fix them. 
Let that thought stick to your brain 
like a cocklebur. 

[86] 




Venture an inventory oj that bag of notions 



SOMETHING WRONG 

Many a six cylinder has kicked and 
quit halfway on the highway of life 
because all the driver understood was 
to provide gasoline for the tank, oil 
for the crank-case, and water for the 
radiator. The added knowledge of 
" how-she's-made " and " how-she's- 
run" would not have permitted life's 
joy ride to be tempered or abbreviated. 

Venture an inventory of that bag 
of notions! 



[88] 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




DQD55TAbb23 



